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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Did I mention I had breakfast with John Cleese?


John Cleese and Amy at breakfast
Originally uploaded by cmiked.

Did i? So here's the story. John Cleese had performed for or convention's big gala event the night before. Amy and I were lucky enough to get rooms on the concierge level of the Boca Raton Resort and Club for the convention. We love free breakfast!

So Thursday morning, after getting packed to head home, we ran up to the Commodore Room for a final breakfast. I saw him the second we walked in, he is a very tall man. I walked over and grabbed a plate just as he was leaving the eggs. We exchanged "excuse me"'s and I said, "We saw your show last night and really enjoyed it." He replied, "Really, i thought you seemed quite tired." I laughed and explained that we had just sat through an hour of guys exchanging jackets and being presented with crystal gavels, got my eggs and moved on.

After filling my plate, I looked around for Amy and see she is sitting at the table with him! Apparently there were no empty tables and she asked if she could join him. His reply: "The English are not very good conversationalists in the morning, so if that doesn't bother you, please do."

I walked up and sat opposite him quietly eating my breakfast, twittering and texting about with whom I was eating. I got up to refill my coffee and snapped this with the blackberry. While he continued to eat his eggs, dring his coffee and honey, and peruse the New York Times.

As he was wrapping up his meal, he asked us if we were leaving today, to which we replied yes. He asked where we were from, when we replied Waco, he told us that his soon to be ex-wife used to live in Waco. She was married to a pro-golfer from here in the 70's, Dave Eichelberger. "Steve Martin was born in Waco too," he said. We agreed. I said that I was glad someone knew some better things about Waco. Amy asked him if he was going to stay in Florida, he replied, "I should hope not, this place is what my mother should refer too as Hell warmed up." He said that he was flying up to Newark spending the night then back to London. He said because of his height, he can't sleep on planes anymore, I mentioned that I had that problem due to my width and he chuckled, I'm sure.

We exchanged farewells, he thanked the concierge, and made his leave. Then Amy and I started giggling. He was the only reason I sat through that gala. I've been a Monty Python fan for as long as I can remember and Fawlty Towers is simply the best. So I was quite giddy and maybe still a little giddy almost a week later.